Indian IT consulting giant Wipro has continued its strategy of consolidating its presence in the Australian market, establishing a strong academic link in the country through the appointment of Ryszard Kowalczyk as its Chair for Artificial Intelligence at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne.

Kowalczyk holds a Master of Engineering from the University of Zielona Gora and a PhD in Computer Science from the Silesian University of Technology. He began his professional career more than two decades ago as a Senior Research Scientist for Knowledge-based systems at Rio Tinto.

He subsequently spent over six years as a Principal Research Scientist and the Head of Applied Artificial Intelligence Research at CSIRO. Since 2003, Kowalczyk has been engaged at the Swinburne University of Technology, where he has occupied a number of varying roles in the domain of Artificial Intelligence.

It is this expertise in AI that has now earned him the title of Wipro Chair of AI at the university. The appointment is representative of a larger partnership between the two organisations, which includes the establishment of a joint innovation centre in the domain of AI.

The new centre will be used as a space for experimentation and research in various AI and machine learning applications, specifically with respect to improvements in the fields of healthcare and smart cities. The solutions will then be marketed across Australia and the broader region of Asia.

Commenting on the appointment, Senior Vice President and Business Head of Wipro for Asia Pacific and Japan Manoj Nagpaul said, “Through the combined power of Wipro’s global innovation ecosystem and Swinburne University’s research capabilities, we will drive world-class research in AI that will have an impact on a global scale. We are also very excited to be able to take many of the jointly developed innovations to our customers.”

Kowalczyk himself added, “With this powerful industry-academia partnership, we are on course to transform AI and ML as we know it. AI and ML are today one of the most coveted skills and this innovation centre makes it possible to fast track AI and ML courses for industry professionals and provide the industry with access to a large pool of PhD and undergraduate students at the University.”

For Wipro, this represents a promising new step for two of its significant strategic objectives. Not only is the firm looking to expand its capabilities in AI and other industry 4.0 domains to regain business, but it has also been focusing on Australia as a growing market for these services in recent times.